Ariel Castro's family to hold private service for dead Cleveland kidnapper/rapist

Ariel Castro stood between attorneys Craig Weintraub (left) and Jaye Schlachet as his sentencing hearing. The 53-year-old was serving life in prison plus 1,000 years when he was found hanging in his cell. (AARON JOSEFCZYK/REUTERS)

Ariel Castro's family planned a small, private funeral and cremation for the convicted Cleveland kidnapper in hopes of sparing his three ex-prisoners any further angst, a relative told the Daily News.

"The family is in a state of mourning," said Castro's brother-in-law Juan Alicea, 63, as relatives made plans Thursday to recover the dead man's body from the Franklin County coroner's office. "We're sticking together."

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The secret service, with no outsiders permitted, was intended to steer attention away from the three women kept chained inside Castro's home, where they were repeatedly raped and abused for years.

Castro hung himself in his cell at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, south of Columbus. Above, a cell at the jail, though not the one where Castro was kept. (KIICHIRO SATO/AP)

"There's going to be a very private family service," Alicea told The News. "We don't want to draw attention and have the girls relive their emotions. We want to make it as easy for them as we can. They've suffered enough."

The kidnapper and rapist's brother Pedro sat silently Thursday inside his home, refusing to say a word about his late sibling or the family's planned low-profile farewell. The county coroner confirmed the family's plans to retrieve Castro's body.

Castro's remains will go first to a funeral home before the family holds its services for the convicted monster.

None of the women held hostage by Castro offered any public reaction to the shocking suicide that came barely one month after his Aug. 1 sentencing. The women were held hostage for between 9 and 11 years in the house of horrors that was torn down once the captives were finally freed.

‘Our focus remains on the well-being of the survivors of Seymour Ave.,’ the Cleveland mayor said after Castro’s death. (Pearl Gabel/Pearl Gabel/New York Daily News)

But a cousin of victim Amanda Berry said that Castro's death showed that his victims were actually stronger than their captor.

"Killing yourself, that's not strength," Tina Miller said. "Surviving it is strength, and that's what them girls did. They survived it for 11, 10 and 9 years."

Rusty chains were found secured to walls in Ariel Castro's house of horrors in Cleveland. (CNN)

Berry delivered a baby girl, now 6, while under Castro's control. Barry, along with Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, were kidnapped off the Cleveland streets between 2002 and 2004.

Two investigations continued Thursday into the shocking Tuesday night suicide where Castro — while in protective custody — managed to hang himself with a bedsheet in his cell.

Michelle Knight gave emotional statement during sentencing of Castro who held her captive and brutally raped her for many years. (AARON JOSEFCZYK/REUTERS)

One probe will focus on the suicide itself. It wasn't clear how he was able to hang himself since the cell didn't have any overhead beams or pipes. Experts speculated that he may have tied the sheet around a window bar, stood up and then dropped — snapping his neck.

The other investigation will examine whether Castro, 53, received adequate health care in the days before his death. Lawyers for the Cleveland man complained that correction officials ignored their calls for additional psychiatric testing in the weeks before his death.

A crane demolishes the home that once served as a terrible dungeon where Ariel Castro brutalized three young women. (Angelo Merendino/Getty Images)

Castro served just 34 days of his life-plus-1,000-year sentence before killing himself.